Cold Sassy Tree (31 page)

Grandpa plopped his hat on and stalked off before I could tell him that Mama was the one crying now.

It was all my fault. Miss Love had questioned me, trying to make certain sure Mama wasn't going before she put on her act for Grandpa. Well, I'd go tell her how it was, that's what I'd do. She was so kind and understanding, I was sure she wouldn't stand in the way of Mama going.

I was right.

When I got there, Miss Love was in the kitchen at the wash table, scouring pans. Her face was more freckledy than usual, I reckon from being out with the horse, and she'd pulled her hair back in a tight knot. She didn't look pretty. I blurted it right out, how just last night Mama decided to go to New York with Papa after all, "only now Grandpa says you and him are go'n go."

She looked stunned. Her hands were sudsy from the dishwater but she didn't rinse or dry them before plonking herself down at the kitchen table. Her wet fists clenched and a hard look came on her face as the disappointment sunk in. Then she calmed down and said sweetly, "Will, I feel terrible about this. Your mother must go, by all means. She needs to get away. Anyhow, it's her trip."

"I was sure you'd say that, Miss Love, once you knew how it was!" I could hardly wait to run home and tell Mama. When I was halfway out the door, Miss Love asked me what Grandpa said when he found out that Mama had decided to go.

"He don't know yet. Mama didn't tell him."

She seemed surprised. Giving a long sigh, she said, "Then I'll tell him at dinner. This was all his idea, you know. He said Mary Willis definitely wasn't going and it was a pity to waste a free boat ticket. You know how frugal he is. Well, he'll certainly want your mother to have the trip."

It struck me how different her explanation of how it came about was from what Grandpa said. I guess she was just too proud to admit to me how it had got to her, the way Cold Sassy was treating her. The important thing, Miss Love wanted to do right by Mama, just like I knew she would.

There's no way she could of guessed that Mama would say, "No, let Love go on to New York. Let her have a good time. It don't matter about me." Miss Love was just sorry as could be when neither Papa nor I nor Aunt Loma could talk Mama into going.

Aunt Loma was really furious about it. Soon as she heard—Camp told her when he came home to dinner that day—she rushed over home and ran upstairs, where Mama was crying in her room. Speaking so loud I could hear her from the downstairs hall, Loma said, "Sister, you cain't let Love Simpson go off like that with Pa! You know good'n'well she'll hope to come back with more than the latest in housewares and dress goods."

Mama mumbled something into her pillow.

"She'll try to get you-know-what, that's what I'm talkin' about. Pa won't pay for two rooms at the hotel and Love knows it. She's prob'ly been tryin' ever since their weddin' day to get him into her bed. This is her chance!"

"Loma, hush up!" cried Mama.

"I mean just what I'm sayin'. And, Sister, if That Woman has a baby, you know good'n'well she'll get her hooks on a whole lot more of Pa's money than she bargained with him for. Sister, you got to go to New York!"

"Well, I'm not. I don't even want to go now. I don't even feel like goin'."

Still and all, if Aunt Loma had kept her mouth shut, Mama might of had her trip. She didn't have a gnat's chance after Loma stormed into the store and gave her daddy down the country, blessing him out right in front of Papa, Uncle Camp, me, and two customers.

Grandpa let her rave till she shouted, "Pa, Love Simpson has earned the disrespect of everybody in town. And now she's go'n get everything she can out of you, startin' with New York City! But you, Pa, you're too blind to see!"

Grandpa held up his hand like a policeman—to stop her or slap her, I couldn't tell which—and shouted, "Good gosh a'mighty, Loma, ain't none a-this any a-yore dang bizness! Now go on home and be-have!"

Then he turned to my daddy and said in a harsh voice, "Hoyt, I wisht I'd a-knowed last night thet Mary Willis done changed her mind. But now it's jest too late."

I didn't see why it was too late.

I bet Papa felt like crying, or like knocking Grandpa to Kingdom Come and back, and Loma with him. But all he said was, "It's all right, Mr. Blakeslee. I'm sure Mary Willis understands."

Furious, I went back to the storage room to finish ripping open a crate of canned Alaska salmon. A few minutes later Grandpa yelled, "Will Tweedy? You come here, boy!"

As I soon found out, anger at me had been festering in him ever since yesterday, and Aunt Loma's fit brought it to a head. Standing behind the counter, he spoke sternly as I came towards him. "Will Tweedy, ain't I always treated you special?"

"Yessir?"

"Then how come, if'n you aim to be a dang farmer stead a-comin' in the store with me, how come you told it to a dang fool like Lias Foster? You ain't said pea-turkey to me bout it—you or yore daddy, either one. How you think it felt yesterd'y when I went to braggin' bout you takin' over the store some day and thet fool contradicted me? This here store's made a livin' for me and yore daddy, too, boy, and lots a-other folks. You think you go'n make a better livin' farmin'?"

"No, sir, that ain't it."

"Well, then maybe you think it's something noble to walk behind a dang plow and starve to death on five-cent cotton. Is thet it?"

I looked over at Papa, who was working on the ledger. His face was red as a beet, but he didn't put in a word for me. He was too upset about Mama losing her trip, I reckon, and anyhow he believed in a boy fighting his own battles. Without a word he went outside where the sacks of chicken grits were stacked against the show window and commenced talking to some old men sitting on the bench in the sun. I wished Papa had at least told me what Mr. Lias said I said. Later I found out he hadn't heard what Mr. Lias said I said.

The more Grandpa talked, the madder he got. "Why you want to be a no-count farmer?" he thundered.

"I ain't go'n be no-count, sir. I'm goin' to the Ag College over at the University and study new methods. I'm go'n make farmin' pay."

"I reckon you think I'll give you cheap credit." He said it sarcastic.

"Yessir, I do." I looked him straight in the eye. "Ain't you always talked like I was the same as your own son?"

A proud grin came on his face and his tone softened. "At least you smart enough to know how to get around me. But doggit, Will Tweedy, I thought you liked store work."

"I like bein' here with you, Grandpa. You and Papa." I couldn't hardly stand it, seeing him let down. "But I'd rather work outdoors, sir. I like makin' things grow. Raisin' animals, gettin' up plants."

I didn't tell him that the reason I first started liking farm work was because I could make fifty cents a day hoeing cotton and fifty cents a hundred pounds picking it, whereas at the store I never even got a thank-you. What I did there was just expected. "Store work ain't excitin', Grandpa. But farmin' is just one great big old dice game. Else why would so many men stay in it, times like these?"

"What else can a farmer do cept farm? And heck fire, boy, you think they ain't no gamble to runnin' a store?"

"Yessir, some. But not much."

"You think it don't matter if'n I order something thet don't sell? Hit ain't gamblin' if'n I order ten ladies' dresses from New York and find out I could a-sold twenty-five? Answer me thet."

"Well, sir, but farmin's for bigger stakes, Grandpa. A ready-made dress or a can of salmon ain't near as big as a bale of cotton or a cow."

That made him laugh. Slapping his knee, he picked up the wholesale order form and I started back to the storage room. Then, with his pencil poised over the form, Grandpa looked up over his reading glasses and asked, "Son, why ain't you said nothin' bout this up to now?"

"I'm always talkin' bout farmin', Grandpa," I said boldly. "Maybe you just ain't been listenin'."

"Well, but you ain't talked bout not comin' in the store."

All of a sudden I didn't feel bold at all. "I reckon I was scared to," I mumbled. "Scared I wouldn't be your boy anymore, Grandpa."

He flushed, and in a gruff voice said, "You ain't old enough to know what in ding-dong you go'n want to do two-three year from now, Will Tweedy. Here I'm willin' to give you a chance in life and you say you don't want it. Gosh a'mighty, how I used to wish somebody'd give me a hand up. I had to make it all on my own, and it's a hard road, son. Well, time you git th'ew high school, you go'n be glad you got a job waitin' for you here at the store. In the meanwhile, don't be talkin' our bizness to Lias Foster."

Grandpa hadn't heard a word I said. He'd put the whole thing down to my being young and foolish and talking big. Like I hadn't said a word, he was still offering me the store, just like Aunt Loma offered me her blank book. Neither one of them cared what I wanted to be. Well, when the time came and somebody had to give in—him, her, or me—it sure dern wasn't going to be me.

Later I wondered if Miss Love had guessed how the fuss about the New York trip would turn out. Because despite she acted so willing to step aside after I told her the situation that morning, and despite it seemed like she took it for granted Mama and Papa would be the ones to go, when I went up there later that day to clean the stable, she had some gray and white striped taffeta cloth spread out on Granny's dining table and was pinning pattern pieces on it.

The pattern envelope said in big letters: traveling dress.

She couldn't of known then that her trip was still on, since Grandpa had been too busy to come home to dinner that day and just ate sardines and crackers at the store. So who would of told her she was still going?

It really made me mad.

Still and all, when Miss Love looked at me and said how sweet I was to come clean out the stable for her, I felt almost as glad she was going as I was sorry that Mama wasn't. Cold Sassy really had been awful about her kissing Mr. McAllister.

No telling what they'd say about her going off to New York unchaperoned with a man she claimed she wasn't really married to. But at least she'd be away from the gossip for a while.

Grandpa had sense enough to know what folks were saying. It was like he'd married Miss Love in the first place as a practical joke and couldn't understand why nobody bragged on him for thinking it up; and now he was furious because Cold Sassy was saying Miss Love stole Mama's trip to New York.

By next morning Grandpa had found a way to thumb his nose at the whole dang town, so pious and hypocritical: he started giving out invites to Sunday morning preachin' at his house.

When Mr. Predmore came in for pipe tobacco, for instance, Grandpa smiled big and friendly and said, "We havin' preachin' and communion agin at my house come Sunday. Miss Love and me, I mean. We'd be mighty proud to have you and yore fam'ly join us." Knowing he was being taunted, Mr. Predmore didn't answer. "Won't cost you a red cent," Grandpa called after him as he stalked out. "We don't pass no dang collection plate."

Uncle Lige whispered to Papa, "Thet in iteself would be a miracle—hearin' a sermon 'thout havin' to pay for it." Cudn Hope laughed, but Papa looked like he'd just heard heresy incarnate.

Showing off for customers, Uncle Lige kept making jokes about miracles, and Grandpa joked back. "Who knows, Lige, might be we'll even turn water into wine, haw! Ifn we do, I'll save you some." Then, waving his arm to include several customers in the store, Grandpa called out like a dern circus barker, "Come one, come all y'all! Be glad to have you. We ain't havin' Sunday school, jest singin' and prayin' and preachin'. Miss Love's go'n make ten pound cakes to take care a-the communion crowd." Whacking a slab of cheese off the round for Thurman Osgood, the dwarf, Grandpa wrapped it and said as he handed down the package, "Join us Sunday mornin', son. We go'n have us a good time."

The church people of Cold Sassy, Georgia, didn't look at Sunday morning as the time to have a good time. As Grandpa expected and intended, they took it like he was making fun of religion, or like he was asking folks to come to a house of ill repute and call it church. People said it looked like Mr. Blakeslee just wanted to make everybody mad. Which he did.

Mr. Flournoy said he and his wife would come, but most folks either acted like they didn't hear the invite or else huffed out of the store without buying a thing.

Finally Papa dared to say "Mr. Blakeslee, folks are mad about you makin' fun of the Lord's Day. What if they quit buyin' from us?"

Grandpa just laughed. "Ain't go'n happen. You think anybody's go'n hitch up and ride a buggy all the way to Commerce just for twenty pounds a-sugar or a dime's worth a-nails at Hard-man Hardware or Williford, Burns, and Rice? Naw, Hoyt. Hit's easy to git mad, but it takes time to go over to Commerce."

What my daddy didn't see was that Grandpa was madder than anybody else in Cold Sassy. Grandpa had thought marrying Miss Love was a cheap way to get a white housekeeper and not be a burden on his daughters, but now the town had changed her from a nice pleasant milliner into a Mad Hatter who cried all the time.

G
RANDPA
didn't preach the sermon at his second home church service. He asked Queenie's husband, Loomis, to do it.

Despite all the invites, the congregation didn't swell much that day. Only Mr. and Mrs. Cratic Flournoy came—probably because they liked Miss Love, but also because they liked to sing and couldn't bear the thought of trying to drag through another hymn with Miss Effie Belle feeling her way over the piano. But they claimed later they went to remind Cold Sassy in general and the Methodists in particular that God loves sinners and forgives them, "and we ought to, too."

Cold Sassy thought Grandpa had really stepped out of bounds, asking a Negro preacher to give the sermon. Old Loomis had preached many a one in the white kitchens of Cold Sassy. If he was bringing in stovewood and noticed a silver spoon that was tarnished, he'd say, "You know, white folks, 'ligion be jes lak dis here silver. You got to keep it polish reg'lar or it don' shine, naw suh."

Every June during the time of our school exhibition, the graduating class gave orations and dialogues on Friday night. Then on Saturday night the colored would make money for their church by putting on a show for us white folks. First they'd have a Negro minstrel, then a Negro sermon by Loomis, all dressed up in his dingy white vest, black pants, jim-swing black tailcoat, and beaver hat. Later, after the spirituals, Loomis and old Uncle Lem would put on a debate, all in fun. Old Lem always took the "nigi-tive" and Loomis the "infirmity." I remember one time the evening ended with Loomis saying, "You know, white folks, when a man cast his bread pon de waters, it gwine come back buttered toast, praise Jesus." Passing his hat, he joked, "Tonight, I represents de waters. So cast yo bread on me an' de good Lawd gwine bless yo gingerosity." Everybody laughed—and Loomis made some extra money.